Head out onto the water on any given weekend and you’ll be hard-pressed to find a boat that’s not outfitted with one or more products made by T-H Marine. From the sleekest saltwater sport fishing boats to small kayaks navigating quiet backwaters, the marine manufacturer’s influence can be found gracing vessels of every size and purpose.
Headquartered in Huntsville, Ala., and owned by large recreational boat retailer OneWater Marine since 2021, T-H Marine makes a wide array of boat parts and accessories, including bait systems, steering devices, storage systems, motor accessories, anchors and lighting products. Founded in 1975, the 450-employee company sells its products direct to consumers, retailers, distributors and boat manufacturers.
This year T-H Marine celebrates its 50th anniversary and the impressive growth that it has posted since inception. What started out as a small operation has evolved into a one-stop shop for its customers’ marine product needs. The manufacturer has also widened its distribution network, added an e-commerce channel to its selling strategy and formed many direct sales partnerships with retailers and boat builders.
T-H Marine caught the eye of a private equity (PE) investor in 2019, at which point the manufacturer had multiple companies—metal machining, injection molding, e-commerce, etc.—under its umbrella. Each entity ran autonomously using its own business systems, organizational structures and talent pools. This disconnected approach impeded good financial visibility across the company.
“When you become part of a PE group, they’re going to want to scale the business and drive efficiencies and growth in order to double their money; that’s the standard model of a PE firm,” says CFO David Jones, who was brought into T-H Marine in 2019 to put a more structured financial function in place to scale. The company also needed consolidated financials that would meet the requirements of its investors, external stakeholders and auditors (for both financial and bank audits).
“That infrastructure didn’t previously exist,” Jones says. Instead, the company was manually “pulling” information from various systems and putting that data together into Excel spreadsheets for sharing with management and leadership. “We knew that as we grew, we’d need an enterprise resource planning (ERP) system,” says Jones, “so we started the process of looking for one.”
In 2022, T-H Marine hired an outside firm to help it evaluate and select an ERP. “We looked at all the different options that were out there and narrowed it down to three, NetSuite being one of them,” says Jones, who had used NetSuite at a previous employer. The evaluation time whittled the choices down to NetSuite and the company went live on the new ERP in August 2022.
T-H Marine Supplies worked directly with NetSuite to implement its new system, which had its challenges. For example, the manufacturer needed more customizations and scripts to keep information flowing across its myriad different departments and business units. The system’s out-of-the-box functionalities needed to be complemented by key technology add-ons to support T-H Marine’s requirements.
“Our organization is fairly complex due to all of its different business units, selling channels, products and stockkeeping units (SKUs),” Jones explains. "We needed a long-term partner to stabilize and enhance our NetSuite platform.”
The company started looking at other options, including ScaleNorth—an experienced NetSuite implementation partner recommended by the outside firm that T-H Marine worked with to select the ERP in the first place. “We needed someone to help us get across the finish line,” says Jones. “We really liked what ScaleNorth brought to the table, specifically their expertise and background.”
T-H Marine Supplies also realized that it was going to need more NetSuite customizations and scripting to get the ERP to run as expected. ScaleNorth was there to help. “They have the resources that we needed, and we wound up doing quite a bit more scripting and customizations than I thought we ever would have,” says Jones, who adds that the company’s business was also evolving at the same time as it added new divisions and was acquired by its current parent company.
“We went from having four businesses to having nine, all while trying to put an ERP system in place,” he says. “It was a lot of work and ScaleNorth was our sounding board when we ran into challenges. They’ve seen similar problems at other clients and can quickly bring options to us.”
When T-H Marine’s professional services contract with NetSuite ran out, the company initially considered using the software provider’s Advanced Customer Support (ACS) offering. Upon further evaluation, it chose ScaleNorth to lead and support the company through the ERP optimization process.
“We compared ACS to ScaleNorth and chose the latter. ScaleNorth brought deep expertise both with NetSuite and the key point solution and integrations we required,” says Jones. “This really makes me appreciate the fast response that I get from the ScaleNorth team.”
As T-H Marine was going through the ERP implementation process, it was also acquiring four new businesses. This put additional pressure on the manufacturer to get its new unified, cloud-based ERP up and running quickly and effectively. Jones says ScaleNorth came on the scene just in time. “Getting ScaleNorth onboard to help us not only stabilize that new ERP environment, but it also helped us bring these other businesses online,” he says.
ScaleNorth also helped T-H Marine integrate third-party applications like AvaTax with NetSuite, effectively creating a streamlined flow of data between the ERP and the tax management solution. The company was using multiple Shopify stores, all of which were integrated through Celigo into NetSuite to manage the e-commerce backend. ScaleNorth also recommended and handled warehouse management integrations RF-SMART and other third-party applications.
Other company-specific nuances that weren’t addressed during the initial implementation process included T-H Marine’s complex sales commission structures; pass-through tariffs—some of which are itemized for customers and others which aren’t; and numerous priority-based approval processes. ScaleNorth handled all of these optimizations with ease.
With its ERP optimized and all nine of its business units using the new ERP, T-H Marine began to see the results pretty quickly. “In my role especially, the results are night and day. We’re definitely seeing the benefit from the financial reporting perspective,” says Jones. There were a few early A/P and A/R “bugs” to work out, he says, but the “finance and accounting portion of the system was adopted very quickly and very effectively.”
Like many manufacturers and retailers, T-H Marine was also solidifying its e-commerce channel and using NetSuite and ScaleNorth to help it expand its online infrastructure and serve its growing base of online buyers. Early on, for example, the company needed help integrating its Shopify storefront both with NetSuite payments and its sales tax application. “We didn’t have a strong process for handling that, and wanted it done correctly and efficiently,” says Jones, who today has much more confidence in the tools T-H Marine has in place for managing its e-commerce channel.
“When we look at selling through Walmart, Bass Pro or Academy—or getting more into FBA with Amazon and drop shipping—we now have a lot more confidence in our tools,” says Jones. “We know that NetSuite is our single source of truth, and we’ve worked closely with ScaleNorth to get that effectively integrated on the sales tax and e-commerce storefront side.”
Today, T-H Marine’s finance team has all of the reporting and financial data it needs to be able to close the monthly books quickly, perform financial eliminations and report back to its parent company and stakeholders. Its customer service and sales teams now have the customer, sales order, product and transaction data they need to work faster and more accurately. And, T-H Marine’s manufacturing teams can confidently execute on work orders, knowing that those orders are accurate, up to date and reliable.
With ScaleNorth’s team of NetSuite optimization experts in its corner, T-H Marine has a system in place that will help it scale and grow in the future. “That's the whole reason we did this in the first place. It goes back to the question of, how do we acquire companies, move into other markets and segments and build the business without adding resources?” Jones asks. “We now have the foundation in place to be able to go out and make our next acquisition, and a system that will run us up into the $1 billion-plus revenue range.”
To learn more about ScaleNorth’s NetSuite managed services program, contact us today.
